'Help his prophecy, ye vermin, when he's ears to hear; and tell him I
wait to carve them from his head.'
He bore Bembo with him from the hall, as he might carry a moth
fluttering on his sleeve. Murmurs rose in his wake, seething and
furious; but he heeded them not. In a deserted court beyond, he shook
the pretty spoil from his arm, not roughly but with an air of madness,
and stood breathing like a driven ox.
'What now?' he groaned at last--'what now?'
Then all in a moment the boy was sobbing before him.
'O Carlo! dear Carlo! I would the Duke were returned!'
His grief and helplessness moved the other to a frenzy. His chest
heaved, he caught at his throat, struggling vainly for utterance of the
fears which had of late been tormenting him without definite reason.
Seeing his state, Bernardo sought to propitiate it with a smile that
trembled out of tears.
'Nay, mind me not--a child to cry at a shadow.'
Lanti choked, and found voice at length.
'The Duke? Monstrous! Call'st thou for him? Forget'st Capello? Art
changed indeed.'
'Alas!' cried the boy, 'no change in me. I think only of a more ruling
tyranny than mine. Pitiless himself, he made pity sweet in others.
I've converted 'em from deeds to words, that's all.'
'The Duke!'
'I begin to see. Thou warned'st me, I remember. The fashion of me
passes, like thy shoe's long beaks. Yesterday they were a span; to-day
they're shrunk by half; to-morrow, mayhap, ye'll trim them from your
feet and run on goat's hooves.'
'Thou ravest. 'Tis for thee, being Duke-deputy, to trim _us_.'
'Into what? Cherubs or satyrs? Be quick, lest the fashion change while
you talk.'
'Go to! Thou art the Duke, I say.'
'Well, a fine puppet, and great at righting wrongs. There's Lucia to
witness.'
'She's provided for.'
'With bread. O, I am a very Mahomet. If I but nod my head, the city
shall crack and crumble to it.'
'God! What ails thee, boy?'
'Something mortal, I think. A breath withered me just now!'
'A breath? Whose breath?'
'Whose? O Carlo, forgive me! What have I said or done? Look, I'm
myself again. It just fell like a frost in June, killing my young
olives. I had so hung upon it, too--its help and promise. The harvest
seemed so certain.'
'Ah! She's thrown you over?'
'Dreams, dreams!' sighed poor little Nathan; 'to live on dreams--a deaf
man's voices, a blind man's vision. I have seen such things, built such
kingdoms out of dreams. Carlo! what have I done?'
Lanti ground his teeth.
'Done? Proved woman's constancy a dream--that's all.'
He clapped his chest, and looked earnestly at Bembo, and cried in a
broken voice:--
'Boy--before God--tell me--thou hast not learned to desire her?'
The child looked up at him, with a pitiful mouth.
'Ah! I know not what you mean; unless it be that pain with which I see
her melt from out my dream when most possessing it.'
'Most? She? She to possess thy dream, thy purpose?' cried Lanti, and
drew back in great emotion.
'She _is_ my purpose,' said the boy--'or _was_, alack!'
'Is and was,' growled the other. 'Well, 'tis true that for the purpose
of thy purpose _I_ remain; but then I don't count. What am _I_ to
thee?'
'My love, beyond all women.'
'I am? That's much. Now will we do without the Duchess.'
'Alas!'
'Shall we not?'
'She hath so nursed my flock to pasture--the kind ewe-mother. The bell
was about her neck. Now, it seems, she will have neither bell nor
shepherd, and the flock must stray.'
'Hath she in truth cast thee? On what pretext?'
'Nay, I know not. It seemed the twin-brother of him that once she used
for loving me.'
'Ay, it is their way. But scorn, for your part, to show caloric as she
cools.'
'Alas!'
'Trust me there. What had you said to chill her?'
'Nothing that I know, but to crave her ear a moment.'
'It is the sink of slander in a woman--a pink shell with a dead fish
inside. Yet thy whisper might have sweetened it.'
'Stung it rather. Carlo, I know not what to do.'
'Tell me.'
'Shall I, indeed? I fear thee. Wilt thou be gentle?'
'As a lamb.'
'Well, then, I'll tell thee--I am so lost. Carlo, dear, I know where
the ring is.'
'You do? Do you see how calm I am? Where is it?'
'Beatrice hath it--thy Beatrice.'
'You know that?'
'She sent to tell me--last night. God help me, Carlo, for a credulous
fool!'
'You went to her? Well?'
'She would give it me, Carlo--O Carlo! on such a condition!'
'Which if you refused----?'
'It shall be a fatal ring to me, she ended.'
'Shall it?--or to her? Well, that's said. And now, wilt thou go rest a
little, sweetheart, while I think? I cannot think in company.'
'I will go, but not to rest.'
'Pooh! thy Fool shall drug thy folly with his greater.'
'Alas! he's gone.'
'Gone?'
'He too. Nay, blaspheme not. He had his reasons.'
'For what?'
'For leaving me awhile. "My folly starves on thine ambrosia," he said.
"I would fain feed it a little on human flesh."'
'How long's he gone?'
'Some days.'
'Let him keep out of my way when he returns.'
'I'll not love you if you hurt him.'
'Then I'll not hurt him. Thy love is mine, and thy confidence, look
you. This ring--speak not a word on it, to Bona or another, till I bid
you.'
'Then I will not.'
'That's good. God rest you, sweetling.'
He watched him go, with frowning eyes; then, no message coming to him
from the hall, strode off to his own quarters in the palace, and bided
there all day.
'These women,' was the burden of his fury--'these women--soulless
beasts! To aim at winning heaven by debauching its angel!--there's
their morality in a nutshell! But I'll send him back there first. So
Beatrice hath the ring! What will she do with it? What shall I with the
knowledge? God! if my wits could run with my rage! To forestall her,
else----'
His fingers worked, as he tramped, on the jewelled hilt of his poniard.
It was Messer Lanti's misfortune that, in knocking down Bernardo's
assailant, he had defaced, literally as well as symbolically, the
escutcheon of a powerful family. The fact was brought to the Duchess's
notice when, shortly after the event, she passed through the hall in
company with her brother-in-law. Hoarse clamour of kinsmen and
partisans greeted her, backed, by way of red evidence, by the condition
of the victim himself.
Her wrath and emotion knew no bounds. She flushed, and stamped, and
wept, and in the midst collapsed. It was outrageous that her authority
should be so defied (though, indeed, it had not been) by the brute
creature of a creature of her lord's. The Duke had never foreseen or
intended such an arrogation of his prerogatives by his deputy. She
would teach this swashbuckler a lesson.
Then she broke down and turned, tearful, almost wringing her hands, to
her brother-in-law. Sure never woman was cursed in such a false
position--impotent and responsible in one. What should she do?
He took her aside.
'These two,' he said, 'are as yet _persona gratae_ with Galeazzo. At
the same time thou canst not with decency or safety ignore the outrage.
Seize and confine Messer Lanti out of harm's way until the Duke's
return--just a formal and considerate detention, pending his decision.
There's thy wise compromise, sister.'
And so indeed it seemed. But undoubtedly the best wisdom lay in his own
adroit seizure of a fortuitous situation. He had wanted this Lanti out
of the way; had foreseen him, as it were, lurking in the thickets far
ahead through which his policy sought a road. Here was the fine
opportunity, and without risk to himself, to ambush the ambuscado, and
have it laid by the heels.
Bona sobbed and fretted, nursing her grievance.
'Why did this angel come to vex us with his heaven? The world, I think,
would be very well but for its schooling by saints and prophets.
Children grow naughty under inquisition. There, have it as you will,
brother; use or abuse me--it is all one. It is my fate to be persecuted
through my best intentions.'
Ludovico put force on himself to linger a little and soothe her. His
soul leapt with anxiety to be gone. To instruct Jacopo; to commission
Tassino--to loose his long-straining bolt in fact--here was the moment
sprung inevitable upon him. He had no choice but to seize it; and
then--
'Your Grace must excuse me,' he said at length, smiling. 'I have to go
prepare against a journey.'
'A journey!' she exclaimed, aghast.
'Surely,' he answered mildly. 'The matter is insignificant enough to
have escaped your burdened memory; but smaller souls must hold to their
engagements. My brother Bari and I are to Christmas with the King of
France in Tours. We sail from Genoa, whither, in a day or two, I must
ride to join him. It is unfortunate, at this pass; but----'
'Go, sir,' she broke in--'go. I see I am to be the scapegoat of all
your policies,' and she hurried from him, weeping.
*CHAPTER XX*
More and more drearily the burden of his long days pressed upon Tassino.
He was not built for heroic endurance; and to have to suffer Damocles'
fate without the feast was a very death-in-life to him. Here, in this
dingy cabin, was no solace of wine to string his nerves; no charm of
lights to scare away bogies; no outlook but upon beastliness and
squalor. He seemed stranded on a mud-bank amidst the ebbing life of the
city, and he despaired that the tide would ever turn and release him.
Listening at his grille, he would often curse to hear the name of his
hated rival--'Bembo! Bembe, Bambino!' sing out upon the swarming air.
It was the rallying-cry of the new socialism, the popular catchword of
the moment; and he hugged himself in the thought of what it would spell
to Galeazzo on his return, and by what racking and rending and
stretching of necks he would mark his appreciation of its utterers'
enthusiasm. If the Duke would only come back! Here was the last of
three who desired, it appeared, each for a very different reason, the
re-installation of an ogre in his kingdom.
But, in the meanwhile, he cowered in an endless apprehension as to his
own safety, which Ludovico's last visit had certainly done nothing to
reassure. On the contrary, it had but served to intensify the gloom of
mystery in which he dwelt. He had since made sundry feeble-artful
attempts to discover from Narcisso what secret attached to the ring,
which, it appeared, that amiable peculator was accused of having
filched, and why Messer Ludovico was so set on possessing it. Needless
to say, his efforts met with no success whatever; and the corrosion of a
new suspicion was all that they added to his already palsied nerves.
The sick flabbiness and demoralisation of him grew positively pitiful,
as he stood day after day at his grille, watching and moping and
snivelling, and sometimes wishing he were dead.
Well, the thicker the mud, the more productive the tide when it comes;
but he was fairly sunk to his neck before it floated him out.
One day, gazing down, his attention was attracted to a figure which had
halted near below his coign of espial. As things went, there was nothing
so remarkable in this figure, in its alien speech or apparel, as to make
it arresting otherwise than by reason of its contiguity to himself. It
was simply that of a crinkled hag, swart, snake-locked, cowled, her
dress jingling with sequins, her right hand clawed upon a crutch. She
appeared, in fact, just an old Levantine hoodie-crow, of the breed which
was familiar enough to Milan in these cataclysmic days, when all sorts
of queer, tragic fowl were being driven northwards from overseas before
a tidal wave of Islamism. For half Christendom was writhing at this
time under the embroidered slipper of the Turk, while other half was
fighting and scratching and backing within its own ranks, in a _sauve
qui peut_ from Sultan Mahomet's ever nearer-resounding tread.
From Bosnia and Servia and Hungary; from Negropont and the islands of
the Greek Archipelago; from new Rome itself, whose desolated houses and
markets weeping Amastris had been emptied to repeople; from Trebizond
and the Crimea, it came endlessly floating, this waste drift of palaces
and temples and antique civilisations, which had been wrecked and
scattered by that ruthless hate. Ruined merchants and traders;
unfrocked satraps; priests of outlandish garb; girl derelicts blooded
and defiled by janissaries; childless mothers and motherless
children--scared immigrants all, they wailed and wandered in the towns,
denouncing in their despair the creed whose jealousies and corruptions
had delivered them to this pass.
In the first of their coming, a certain indignant sympathy had helped to
the practical amelioration of their bitter lot. Men scowled and
muttered over the histories of their wrongs; took warning for a possible
overthrow of the entire Christian Church; talked big of sinking all
differences in a kingdom-wide crusade; and, finally, fell to fisticuffs
upon the question of a common commander for this problematic host.
After which the immigrants, always flocking in thicker, and making civil
difficulties, fell gradually subject to an indifference, not to say
intolerance, which was at least half as great as that from which they
had fled. Fashion, moreover, began to find in the Ser Mahomet a figure
more and more attractive, in proportion as he approached it, issuing
from the mists of the Orient. It was ravished with, if it did not want
to be ravished by, those adorable Spahis, with their tinkling jackets
and sashes and melancholy, wicked faces. It adapted prettily to itself
the caftan, and the curdee, and the turban; re-read Messer Boccaccio's
most Eastern fables; acted them, too, in drawers of rose-coloured
damask, and little talpoes, which were tiny jewelled caps of velvet,
cocked, and falling over one ear in a tassel. But by that time the cult
of immigrancy was discredited _du haut en das_.
Many of the unhappy wretches were drawn by natural process into such
sinks as 'The Vineyard.' The poor are good to the poor, and
pitiful--which is strange--towards any fall from prosperity. In the
instance of this old woman, it was notable how she was humoured of the
drifting populace. The very ladroni, who, outside their own rookery,
might have tormented and soused her in the kennel, were content here to
rally and banter her a little, showing their white teeth to one another
in jokes whose bent she was none the worse for misapprehending. For she
had not much Italian, it appeared; though what was hers she was turning
to the best possible advantage in the matter of fortune-telling.
Tassino saw many brawny palms thrust out for her shrewd conning; echoed
from his eyrie many of the _Eccomi perdutos_ and _O me beatos_ which
greeted her broken sallies. She got a mite here and there, and buzzed
and mumbled over it, clutching it to her lean bosom. Presently some
distraction, of rape or murder, carried her audience elsewhere, and she
was left temporarily alone. Then Tassino, moved by a sudden impulse,
reached down his arm through the grate and tapped her reverend crown.
She started, and ducked, and peered up. He whispered out to her:--
'Zitto, old mother! Come up here, and tell me my fortune for money.'
She seemed to hesitate; he signified the way; and lo! on a thought she
came. He met her at the door, and dragged her in.
'Tell me my fortune,' he said, and thrust out a dirty palm.
She pored over it, chuckling and pattering her little incomprehensible
shibboleth. Presently she seemed to pounce triumphantly on a knot. She
leered up, her hand still clutching his, her hair falling over her eyes.
'Ah-yah!' she muttered. 'Ringa, ringa!' and shook her head.